Voyager

You probably have more computing power in your pocket than what NASA's venerable Voyager spacecraft are carrying to the edge of the solar system. They have working memories a million times smaller than your home computer. They record their scientific data on 8-track tape machines. And they communicate with their aging human inventors back home with a 23-watt whisper. Even so, the twin explorers, now 33 years into their mission, continue to explore new territory as far as 11 billion miles from Earth.

Nearly eight years after it was ordered, the cruise ship Pearl Mist will embark finally on its maiden voyage Wednesday from Baltimore's Inner Harbor, ending the vessel's protracted saga. The 335-foot cruise ship, which spent the past year being finished at a Salisbury shipyard, will depart for an 11-night "Maritime New England Cruise" that will take the 210-passenger vessel north to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where it was built. A lengthy legal dispute between the ship's buyer and its builder delayed its cruise schedule for years.

I am a hearty seafaring type of individual, so recently I spent a week faring around the sea aboard the largest cruise ship in the world that has not yet hit an iceberg. It is called the Voyager, and it weighs 140,000 tons, which is approximately the amount I ate in desserts alone. The Voyager sails out of Miami every week carrying 3,200 passengers determined to relax or die trying. The ship has (I am not making any of this up) an ice-skating rink, a large theater, a shopping mall, a rock-climbing wall and a nine-hole miniature golf course.

I am standing at the front door, locked out of my own house. If this were a movie, it'd be raining. Thankfully, this isn't so it isn't. But the reality is embarrassing enough without any Hollywood embellishments. You see, we have this digital lock. To open it, you input a numeric code. We bought it months ago and I've been using it without incident. But now, standing out here in the dark, I am, suddenly and for no apparent reason, stuck. After a moment, with more hope than confidence, I punch in some numbers.

NASA's Voyager I spacecraft, launched in 1977, has become the first spacecraft to cross into the outermost regions of the solar system before entering interstellar space. Voyager I's instruments measured new radio waves and an increase in the strength of beams of energized particles, which nearly reversed direction, on Dec. 17 as the spacecraft was about 8.72 billion miles from the sun, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement. The evidence shows the spacecraft has crossed into a new region of the solar system before the sun's influence begins to fade and interstellar space begins, said Edward Stone of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

By Marc Gunther and Marc Gunther,Knight-Ridder News Service | May 19, 1995

Talk about wiping the slate clean.The United Paramount Network has canceled all its shows except "Star Trek: Voyager."Gone, and soon to be forgotten, are the sitcoms "Pig Sty" and "Platypus Man" and the dramas "Marker" and "Legend."UPN is a two-night-a-week network that premiered in January. UPN will try again in the fall with three new hour-long dramas. They are:* "Nowhere Man," about a documentary photographer, played by Bruce Greenwood, who must rediscover his identity after his disappears overnight.

By Stephen Wigler and Stephen Wigler,Sun Music Critic | February 19, 1991

Jean Eichelberger Ivey's "Voyager" takes a listener on a boring, somewhat bumpy ride.In a program note, the composer promisingly describes this piece for cello and orchestra as taking "its name from those unmanned satellites which have journeyed to the outermost reaches of our solar system . . ."But hearing the piece last night -- its premiere by cellist Mihaly Virizlay, conductor David Zinman and the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Friedberg Hall -- made one think of the unendurable slides friends bring back from trips.

Make no mistake. Kate Mulgrew is the captain, a worthy successor in the line of steel-jawed space explorers for the United Federation of Planets. In tonight's premiere of "Star Trek: Voyager," she takes firm and fascinating command of the launch vehicle for the new United Paramount Network.In a movie-length debut episode (8 p.m. on WNUV, Channel 54, and WDCA, Channel 20), Ms. Mulgrew barks orders, strides through exploding bulkheads and frets about her pregnant dog back home. As Capt. Kathryn Janeway, she easily dominates every scene she has and should make Paramount thankful that Genevieve Bujold, originally signed for the role, walked off the set after a few days.

"The stars are with the voyager, Wherever he may sail; The moon is constant to her time, But follow, sun will never fail. . . . And so the night is never dark, And day is brighter day . . . ""The Stars Are WithThe Voyager" With those words echoing in their minds, Atholton High School's 26th graduation class received their diplomas at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia last night and set out as voyagers ready to explore the world."There's so much we've accomplished, but there's so much more to accomplish," Stacey Marie Williams, senior class president, said in opening remarks.

Apple's iPhone generated the biggest buzz in the mobile market last year, but that doesn't mean other phone makers and wireless carriers have been standing still. Consider Verizon's LG Voyager. True, Verizon doesn't position Voyager as a direct iPhone challenger - even though it bears more than a passing resemblance to Apple's slickest gadget. Voyager does offer more bells and whistles than any other phone I've seen - including a full-scale Web browser. The problem is that Voyager may be judged more by what it doesn't do, than by what it does.

Seven weeks in, The Chesapeake is still finding its sea legs. There is potential here. The servers are capable and friendly, and there's evidence of talent in the kitchen, but the new restaurant near Station North has yet to assemble a coherent message. It's exasperating. What are they waiting for? The owners of The Chesapeake have talked about wanting it to be approachable. They've achieved that, at least with the physical space, which is roomy, comfortable and blandly attractive.

Will the Maryland basketball team show improvement from last season during its upcoming trip to the Bahamas? That's what third-year coach Mark Turgeon is hoping for during a three-game, four-day exhibition tour against local competition that begins Tuesday night in Nassau. In an interview last week, Turgeon said that the extra summer practice time allowed under NCAA rules for teams going on trips out of the country has turned the Terps into a more mature group. "To me, it's more about the practices and the preparation, which the guys have done a great job with," Turgeon said.

They left Baltimore on Friday by cruise ship and came back Tuesday by charter jet. The passengers from the Grandeur of the Seas arrived safely and with sea stories to last a lifetime. A fire near the stern of the 917-foot Royal Caribbean International ship early Monday morning forced it to make an emergency detour to Freeport, Bahamas, and cut short the vacations of 2,224 passengers. It's the latest in a string of mishaps that have besmirched the reputation of the cruise industry.

Hurricane Sandy forced Carnival Cruise Lines to cancel just two of its many ocean voyages this week, including a seven-day trip to the Bahamas on the Carnival Pride that was to depart this past Sunday from the port of Baltimore. The cruise line is giving refunds to all passengers, but has decided not to let the 2,124-passenger ship merely sit empty in the Chesapeake Bay. Carnival is now offering a two-day cruise out to sea and back from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. Rates start at $129 per person for interior rooms, based on double occupancy.

Like a few thousand other vacationers one Saturday this summer, my wife Novia and I pulled into the crowded parking lot at the end of the boardwalk in Ocean City , looking forward to an afternoon of sun, sand and souvenirs. Unlike anyone else there, though, we were completing a meandering 520-mile journey that began a few days earlier in the mountains of Western Maryland - a journey in our a fully electric car, a 2012 Nissan Leaf. That's right, we drove all the way across the state on nothing but electrons.

Sixty years ago this week, the world's attention was riveted on one man's dream as the liner United States, designed by William Francis Gibbs, steamed eastward across the Atlantic on its maiden voyage. Known as "The Big U," the liner sailed from New York's Ambrose Light to Bishop's Rock, off the English coast, the official Blue Riband course, in three days, 10 hours and 40 minutes, establishing a record that remains unbroken for a trans-Atlantic crossing. Gibbs, who was known during his lifetime as America's greatest naval designer, was consumed with the design and building of the United States, the fastest, most powerful and luxurious superliner ever built, which became his enduring legacy.

The maiden outing of the star ship Voyager can be seen again tonight, while World War II memories continue to unreel with a documentary on the life of a fighter pilot and a cable screening of a penetrating Hitler profile.* "Star Trek: Voyager" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WNUV, Channel 54) -- The latest series in the expanding "Star Trek" universe launched a new network in January -- and is the only Paramount show that will survive to the fall season. This is the movie-length premiere, "Caretaker," in which Kate Mulgrew signed on as the first female star ship captain to command a show.

UPN continues getting the jump on the competition, with premieres of two of its more popular returning series."The Sentinel" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WNUV, Channel 54) -- What happens when a guy with heightened senses of perception, a guy with eyes seemingly in back of, on top of and all around his head, fails? That's the issue tonight, as Ellison (Richard Burgi) uses his "sentinel" abilities to track down his captain, who's stranded in a Peruvian jungle. UPN."Star Trek: Voyager" (9 p.m.-10 p.m., WNUV, Channel 54)

— Michelle DiMenna digs into a salad and flips through a novel on the balcony above her college dorm room. It's the kind of leisure time a college freshman usually takes for granted — oblivious to the grinding days of work and family responsibilities that lie ahead. Not DiMenna. "I mean, look at this," the Baltimore native says, sweeping her hand across the vista in front of her. It is lovely, a scene of classic homes, gently lapping water and autumn-tinged trees that you could sell on a postcard.

Kate N. Boone, a businesswoman and avid sailor, died Aug. 16 of breast cancer at Women & Infants Hospice in Providence, R.I. The former Riderwood and Annapolis resident was 47. Kate Nash was born in Baltimore and raised in Riderwood. She was a 1982 graduate of Garrison Forest School and made her debut that year at the Bachelors Cotillon. She later attended New England College in Henniker, N.H. Mrs. Boone was a crew member aboard the original Pride of Baltimore's maiden voyage in 1979 to Bermuda, New York and Nova Scotia.